Mrs. Todd helped me generously to the whole word BOWDEN, and
consumed REUNION herself, save an undecipherable fragment;
but the most renowned essay in cookery on the tables was a model of
the old Bowden house made of durable gingerbread, with all the
windows and doors in the right places, and sprigs of genuine lilac
set at the front. It must have been baked in sections, in one of
the last of the great brick ovens, and fastened together on the
morning of the day. There was a general sigh when this fell into
ruin at the feast's end, and it was shared by a great part of the
assembly, not without seriousness, and as if it were a pledge and
token of loyalty. I met the maker of the gingerbread house, which
had called up lively remembrances of a childish story. She had the
gleaming eye of an enthusiast and a look of high ideals.
"I could just as well have made it all of frosted cake," she
said, "but 'twouldn't have been the right shade; the old house, as
you observe, was never painted, and I concluded that plain
gingerbread would represent it best.
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